SRINAGAR: A complete shutdown is being observed in occupied Kashmir today to mark the fifth martyrdom anniversary of Kashmiri leader Muhammad Afzal Guru.
All shops and businesses are closed while traffic is off the roads across the occupied territory, according to the Kashmir Media Service.
Protest calls were also given for after Friday prayers by resistance leaders Syed Ali Gilani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik. The Indian authorities have put Gilani, Mirwaiz, Yasin and other leaders under house arrest or in detention to prevent them from participating in protests and programmes related to the martyrdom anniversaries.
Butt’s martyrdom anniversary will be observed across the valley on Sunday (February 11).
The leadership demands that the remains of Guru and another renowned Kashmiri liberation leader, Muhammad Maqbool Butt, be returned from New Delhi’s Tihar Jail for a proper burial.
Guru was hanged in New Delhi’s Tihar Jail on February 9, 2013 while Butt was hanged in the same jail on February 11, 1984. The bodies of the two martyrs remain buried in the jail.
Guru was hanged after a court found him guilty over his alleged role in the 2001 Parliament attack case in New Delhi.
